Political violence in many areas of the developing world represents a barrier against institutionalizing individual and group rights. Understood broadly, such rights include not only safety, but also freedom from encountering artificial obstructions to improving socio-economic status. Intercommunity trust is viewed as crucial for maintaining peaceful relationships between groups, and institutional trust is believed to foster engagement in civil society and the formal political sphere. Using Kenya as a case study, this project investigates 1) the spatial dimensions of political violence and 2) the aftermath of conflict on institutional and intercommunity trust. A recent turn in the field of conflict studies emphasizes local-level dynamics of group clashes that occur within broader episodes of violence, ranging from outright civil war to persistent skirmishes between groups contending for political representation or natural resources. Considering this paradigm shift toward fine resolution analysis, this research employs a mixed-methods disaggregated approach to understanding conflict and its impacts on Kenya's social fabric. First, spatial-statistical methods are used to identify patterns of conflict within Kenya surrounding the country's most recent election violence. Beyond anecdotal accounts of certain areas experiencing high rates of violence, the goal of these analyses is to identify any unexpected trends. Furthermore, the project will assess what party interactions and faction activities may have contributed to these uneven patterns within the country. To illustrate the impacts of violent conflict on Kenya's social fabric, this study includes survey research that is designed to elicit respondents perceptions of institutional and inter-group trust. Faith in national and local institutions is crucial for successful governance. Yet, this form of trust can be limited by the uneven provision of public goods, including security, as a result of preferential treatment granted to certain population by individuals in leadership roles. In a context where many researchers emphasize powerful exclusive social ties, this project is designed to examine the degree to which ethnic communities trust one another. It is expected that these relationships have been influenced by communal conflict, but, more importantly, research in the behavioral sciences has shown that social distance between populations can elevate the risk of future conflict within a society.
Previous research has shown that all too often elections in African states are marred by political violence. Conflict can occur in the form of pre-election intimidation campaigns to stifle voter turnout, or as post-election retribution carried out by a group who feel victimized by accusations of ballot manipulation. This research contributes to scholarship on a pervasive social concern by applying a new and diverse suite of spatial methods to the Kenyan political landscape. Results of the project will provide insight into the dynamics of violence in Kenya at local scales and will also be able to characterize Kenya's social fabric as the 2012 election approaches.
The goal of this dissertation project was to understand the geographic and temporal patterns of Kenya's election violence following the country's national poll in December 2007. At a general level this required careful comparisons between Kenya's more recent insecurity and earlier violence during elections in 1992 and 1997. Electoral conflict has become a major form of armed conflict in sub-Saharan Africa, having taken place recently in Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Cote d'Ivoire, and other countries. Specifically, the goal of the research was to use a disaggregated approach to understanding this form of violence. Rather than viewing election violence to be a function of institutional arrangements and as an artifact, for example, of colonial-era political economy, the spatially disaggregated and place-based approach to conflict that guided this research was designed to investigate contexts (social settings) that are especially likely to engender electoral conflict. Overall, the co-PI completed two fieldwork trips in Kenya, has published academic journal articles, presented research results at several professional association meetings, and successfully defended his dissertation. The research was conducted in an interdisciplinary style and in consultation and collaboration with scholars in anthropology and political science in addition to human geography. The broader impacts of research designed to understand violent conflict are substantial, speaking to the international policy-making community as well as academics. With interdisciplinary qualities, this work bridges key gaps in the literature about African politics and violent conflict. The contribution of the co-PI's research to academic debates have materialized in journal articles (accepted or under review) and also in ongoing research (including fieldwork) about violence in Kenya. Major activities for the dissertation included two fieldwork trips, one during August - October 2011 and another during April - May 2013. The first trip was to conduct interviews with Kenyans who experienced or even participated in electoral violence. This was carried out mainly in Nairobi, Uasin Gishu (central/northern Rift Valley), Trans Nzoia (central/northern Rift Valley), and Western regions of the country. The open ended interviews were designed to complement public opinion survey data and Geographic Informations Systems (GIS) and quantitative analysis of violence data conducted before the fieldwork. Substantial time was invested in converting publicly available data into GIS platforms for predictive modeling. Such data includes archival information detailing the location of settlement schemes (land allocation) within Kenya, historical census indicators, and survey respondents pooled/aggregated into sub-national districts. The second research trip was designed as a follow-up study to verify the evaluation of research propositions the co-PI had developed in preliminary manuscripts. Immediately prior to the co-PIs' final Kenyan fieldwork trip he spent several weeks visiting the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) where he delivered a presentation and began a working partnership with resident conflict studies scholars. Sections of the dissertation project were developed enough at that point in time (including the first fieldwork trip) that the co-PI benefited from valuable expert advice about how to substantially improve the partially-developed manuscripts, rather than only advice about how to present research that was essentially complete. An interactive environment for sharing ideas, as exists at professional meetings and academic conferences, is the best setting to thoroughly develop research ideas and empirical arguments before submitting articles for peer-review. PRIO, which is the institutional home of the Journal of Peace Research, is an perfect example of one such hub of academic activity. Research results have been disseminated in the flagship journal of the co-PI's discipline, Political Geography. In addition to this sole-authored article, the co-PI has presented research funded by this award during invited presentations at the University of Wisconsin, the University of North Texas, and the University of Texas at Austin. At academic conferences, the co-PI presented this DDRI research on six occasions (Association of American Geographers in 2010, 2011, and 2012; two panels at the International Studies Association, 2011; and the 2012 Peace Science Society International conference).
